Dear Partners in Ministry:

Another month has passed and so much seems to have happened it seems like it was two.Our team of young Brits left us after 12 weeks - they were great!Helping with teaching, painting, and other things around the place.We missed them when they left and had trouble cooking just enough rice for two again.

Then we had vacation activities.Thai schools are out right now giving us an opportunity to have special programs for both youth and younger children.We had our first ever (and maybe last) youth marathon where we planned 24 hours of activities for them.Jan was the designated "stay awake adult" and managed to be compas mentas for the whole time though did not deign to play either ping pong nor rugby in the wee hours.Lots of gray hair can be useful sometimes.A great time of fun, singing and Bible study was had and a good sleep followed.

Another holiday event saw us visiting 14 homes to celebrate the Northern Thai New Year.We went to the homes of the parents of the church members with small gifts and asked that God would bless them.This was done in the traditional way and seemed much appreciated by the recipients.We piled into 2 pick ups and the kids came along and as we were doing the serious business inside, the kids had a day long water fight outside.Both the pouring of water for blessing and the throwing of water for fun brings great joy.

We have been here in Payameng Rai for almost 4 years now.Living in a rented house that has been for sale.There have been a couple of scares over the years when we thought the house may be sold out from under us, but this hasn't happened.We are grateful for God's provision of a house, which has been perfect for us.Today the new owner visited us. Yes, the house is now in the process of being sold but closure won't happen until we are ready to move out on the 30th of June.Isn't God's timing and provision wonderful.

We have been here for 4 years and primarily we have been in church planting or starting a new church.God has blessed us in this area and we have seen real spiritual and numerical growth in this time.There are many ways of measuring church growth but we have just thought of a few new ones.

You Know The Church Is Growing When:

• All chairs that have been lent out during the week need to be back for Sunday morning.
• One Adult Sunday school is split into 3 groups and there is still a quorum in each group.
• You are hunting around for enough plates for lunch
• When even though you cook double the amount of rice you did last year there still isn't enough.
• When you have to fight to have a turn doing the dishes.
• When you have to go for 2 months before you have a chance to host the weekly home meeting.

We praise God for his faithfulness and hope you too can enjoy the sense of joy knowing that through your prayers and support you too have been used of Him in His work here.

Prayer Points

We are going to a meeting and then taking a holiday in May and will be traveling from the 9th to the 27th.

Pray for lives being touched by the income generation projects - pray that people will see God's grace in this.

Pray for Sawai, a Bible college student who will be helping Tom and Noi on weekends with a particular emphasis on youth.He has spent time with us over the holidays and relates well to the kids and has a gift for teaching and evangelism.

Please pray for us as we continue to hand over our responsibilities, prepare for closure here.As we look at leaving that we can also look with expectation to what God has for us next, not only on home assignment but also beyond that when we return to be involved in a new church planting ministry.